An Early Start on Running From The Noise

Rain on the shutters, again, was the first thing I remember when I awoke bolt upright at 5 AM.  Sunrise wasn't for another two hours.  Trying but failing to fall back into slumber, I reached over for the phone to check the radar and it was going to rain for a while.

The next thing I was surprised to see in the gloom of the morning and the glare of the little screen was a wet black nose. 

How on Earth does this dog know when I wake up?

After petting her for a bit, I gathered my senses and decided it was time to get up and move with the day.  An extra 30 minutes at this time would be helpful. 

Pull apart the bed and throw the linens into the washer.
Pick up the wires and close the doors in the house.
Get all the odds and ends off the floors and get the Roomba going.

The floors had packs of chihuahuas worth of fur rolling around, it had been busy this week and it only takes two days for dog fur to begin to find places to hide.

The problem is that that Roomba is loud.  At "before 6AM" it would be slamming into doors, growling and getting under the furniture.  Basically turning into an electronic nuisance.

Hey I don't mind that, it's getting the vacuuming done and I can be out walking the dog while it is happening.

Problem one.  Mrs Dog Doesn't Care For The Rain.   She doesn't hate it, she just doesn't see the point in being outside in the rain when you're an 11 plus year old dog.  We walked around just my block which is 1/2 mile almost exactly and got back to the house when Problem Two showed its head.

Problem two.  The house was silent.   After the 15 or so minute walk, the Roomba should be steadily annoying the parrot by making a growling path around the cage and banging into furniture.  It didn't.  It got stuck.   That means that it would have to start all over again.   With a full charge, I was going to have to listen to that thing for at least another half hour.

That also meant that before 7 AM I was giving the world a parrot song concert of squawks, growls, and HELLO!s. 

Sorry folks... 7AM came and the noise was still going on.  After roasting the coffee, grinding, and brewing the first mug in the French Press, I had to hide.

I have a 4 hour routine of banging against the job boards each morning.  Every Morning including Holidays, I'm busy at work looking for permanent work.   It is around 30 hours a week, and varies somewhat but it is a steady drain.  The morning is shot surfing the job boards and sending out resumes and ignoring phone calls from recruiters with strange out of town phone numbers that are almost universally calling from India. 

Settling into the Florida Room with mug of coffee and laptop, I sat down next to Mrs Dog on her mat.   The Roomba then shortly thereafter stopped its growling and was done banging into furniture.  It had finished its job and was charging.   My feet were up on the couch, shhh, don't tell Mom! 

The Silence was deafening.

The Ambient Noise became apparent in a beautiful symphony.  Chords of rain dancing on the tin roof.  Sheets of water dancing on the pool surface.   The irrigation system wheezing to life and quietly whispering water onto the orchids hanging from the fence.  White Noise in Wilton Manors Back Yard opus 134.

I'd managed to get through the first fifth of the job search when I was interrupted.  The magic was broken by an insistent beeping from the washer.  Time to get up and deal with that while starting a second batch of coffee roasting and finish on breakfast.   Growling from the Roomba was replaced by a louder more purposeful growling from the Popcorn Popper that was roasting the coffee.

Of course the parrot joined in.  The brief spell of the tone poem of the back yard was broken, it was time to continue the day. 

Settling back into the chair by the door wasn't quite the same.   The irrigation system was silent.  The rain had stopped and now the dog had went from merely napping to a full on snore that you could hear in every room of the house.

The magic was done.  Time to head back to the regular seat by the window and get back to work.